


Her Light Through the Darkness

by stellaxxgibson



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, MSR, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s05e07 Emily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23835967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellaxxgibson/pseuds/stellaxxgibson
Summary: Her dreams, once unmemorable and colorless, now woke her every morning as her lungs struggled for breath. They were vivid and chromatic; rich with painstaking realism that made her long for the irreversible black that evoked this new anguish, to begin with.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 23
Kudos: 55
Collections: X-Files Angst Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	Her Light Through the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinglingworld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinglingworld/gifts).



> For Denise! Prompt: 'Scully angst either post-Emily or Fight the Future. I’d love something that dives into the psychological damage/consequences everything that’s happened to her must’ve created that the whole Emily/Antarctica thing would’ve made about 100% worse. Maybe she has panic attacks or nightmares or flashbacks or something. Maybe Mulder notices/witnesses one and does his best to help.' 
> 
> This takes place post-Emily and involves nightmares and panic attacks. It is very angsty in the beginning, so read at your own caution.
> 
> This is my first exchange fic and I hope you like it!

_ Darkness. There was only darkness. _

_ Her eyes wouldn’t open. Or maybe they were open? She tried to reach out her hand and wave it in front of her face but all she saw was nothing. There was no glimmer of ivory skin, no shadow, no light. _

_ Something was shaking, she noticed. Maybe it was her? She tried to remember where she was and how she got here, but her memory was as foggy as it was dark in her surroundings. _

_ She tried to move, her left foot first, but it was sunken into the ground. Heavy. Unmovable. Like she was planted into it; her feet rooted so far underground that not even a drop of water could reach its crippling depths. Her entire body wasn’t completely immovable though, she thought. She could move her arms and her mouth so she tried to speak. The deafening sound of screams echoed through her ears and blood trickled down them as the volume pierced her eardrums. Suddenly, she realized the screams were her own, her mouth widely agape. Throwing her hands up to cover her lips, she closed them with haste, unabashedly afraid. So utterly terrified.  _

_ Just as a trickle of a tear shed it’s way down her cheek, a light appeared and shattered the darkness. Her pupils dilated frantically as she tried to adjust to its outstanding glow. She tore her hands from her face, desperate to call out and be noticed by the small figure now in her vision.  _

_ “Emily!” she yelled. “Emily!” Her voice was anguished but at least it was now her own, void of piercing cries.  _

_ Her feet then began to move, step by step, and she was indebted to whatever force that was allowing her to walk again. “Emily!” she cried out once more. “Emily!” But the tiny figure didn’t seem to hear her. _

_ She watched as the body of her child grabbed the hand of another. A masculine and large hand that connected to a tall, old body. The light was too piercing, too bright, and she couldn’t make out either of their faces, but she could tell one of them was Emily. The fluorescent glow illuminated her red and brown hair, and she knew she could recognize her tiny figure anywhere. But this man, this unknown man with his charred fingers intertwined with Emily’s, leading her further and further away into the luminescence, she couldn’t yet recognize. _

_ She tried to call out but her voice was drowned by a loud hum that shook her being. She was immobile, planted once again; feet rooted to the depths of brown Earth.  _

_ The two figures then began walking together and she could hear Emily’s warm giggles, sending a shock of longing straight to her heart. And then suddenly and silently, they were sucked up into the light; gone in a split second. Gone together. _

_ There was only darkness again. _

  
  


With a new break of dawn, Scully awoke clutching her chest, her ribs feeling as if they were fused together, filling full of briny seawater that stung every organ inside of its once protective casing. Her heart plummeted deeper inside with each shallow breath that got harder and harder to inhale; like trying to suck air through a tiny straw. Like gravity had stopped its natural course and was grasping at her instead, ripping her shattered soul downwards through every individual bone of her vertebrae. 

She had to move. She had to stop the intensity of the pain. 

Trying to stand, Scully tore the blankets from her damp and sweaty body - her legs shaking, her mind trying to latch onto reality. She ran and stumbled into her apartment bathroom and started the shower, leaving the knob on the cool color of blue. With trembling fingers, she undid each button of her pajama top and began to remove her sweat-soaked clothes. She then stepped inside the shower and closed the glass door, letting the cold water sink into her flesh like shards of sharpened glass. 

Finally,  _ finally _ , she was able to catch her breath, but the moment of relief didn’t last long. Tears began to pour from her ducts like salty rivers of despair, tearing her from the inside out. It was overwhelming and suddenly numbing, causing Scully’s legs to give out underneath her. 

She wept loudly against the freezing tile of the shower floor, curling up into a ball against its slippery surface. Tears melting into the downpour of water, she closed her swelling eyes and wrapped her arms tightly around herself as goosebumps took over every inch of her ghostly flesh. 

“I can’t,” she cried to herself aloud, her throat raw. “I can’t do this.” Her exhale hitched and she choked on her sobs. “I ca-an’t…” 

Flashes of Emily played through her mind like a reel of jarring memories - wounds too fresh to yet heal. Wounds so new that they were still spouting hot blood with each thump of her pulse - waterfalls of macabre crimson. 

_ “Mommy?” _ Emily’s little voice rang in her ears like a haunting echo, remembering the sound all too vividly. 

_ It isn’t real. She’s gone. It isn’t real.  _

Scully clutched her chest tighter and counted each shallow breath over and over to try to calm herself from her breaking point. 

_ One, two, three, four, five…  _

The numbers jumbled together in her head but she tried to keep her focus solely on them and the intake of air to her burning lungs. 

She continued counting. 

_ One hundred seventeen, one hundred eigh… tee…  _

She passed out then as exhaustion overtook her body, cold and exposed - naked on the frigid and wet hard floor of her bathroom shower. 

Utterly alone. 

_ 

  
  


Days came and went in a blur; cycles of numbness and hysteria, each one just as hard as the next. She had lost track of the calendar - nothing seemed to exist in time anymore. But it had only been four days since Emily’s funeral. Since she had flown home and become adrift in the vastness of her grief - leaving her family and her biological daughter behind. That child buried six feet under solid dirt. 

Alone with the thoughts she was finally letting herself feel, Scully was beginning to open the floodgates to everything else she had been through over the past five years: the loss of her big sister, her abduction, her cancer, and infertility… the death of her own flesh and blood that she never got to feel growing inside her womb, never got to nourish by her own breast. It had all started that night of Emily’s funeral, and now she couldn’t stop her brain from connecting one trauma to the next. All of the tribulations that were usually pushed to the side and ignored were now breaking free in full force and Scully couldn’t stop its pounding waves of approach. She was finally letting it all go. 

Without work as a distraction - which truly was her only reprieve - she was utterly and painstakingly lost. The two weeks Skinner had practically ordered her to take off were going to feel like a lifetime to her. 

Floating and floating, she drifted closer to shattering...

The only thing seeming to get her through was Mulder, who had been calling her every day since their flight home from California, though she never had the strength to answer. Letting the rings dissipate into the once happy tone of her voice on her answering machine, Scully would listen to his short and sweet messages - his voice a small daily ripple of calmness. He would always let her know that he was there for her whenever she needed him. That whatever she may need, he would provide. However, Scully could never pick up the phone and tell him how she was doing and how she was feeling. She could barely even muster the strength to eat the takeout food he’d been leaving on her doorstep for dinner the past few nights. 

She was hurting and forcing herself to go through it all alone - a habitual defense mechanism she’d had since childhood. She’d never let anyone see how much she was suffering. Especially not him. 

_

  
  


With tired eyes that seemed too heavy to keep open, Scully forced herself out of bed and tried to get dressed for the day though it was half-past six in the evening. Her pajamas were tear-soaked and mismatched - a summary of her current state - and she needed to shed them. To cry all over new ones until all of her clean laundry ran out and piled up high. 

Walking towards her dresser, she pulled out the second drawer, sights lost in the few colors that still remained inside. She withdrew a pink shirt and red bottoms and set them on top; invaded the first drawer for a fresh new pair of underwear. But then she was caught off guard by the twinkle of light a few inches over, the setting sun shining against its golden spark. 

She let her underwear fall to the floor and instead, picked up the cross necklace that she’d carefully set in her opened jewelry box just a few days prior. Fingering the weightless piece, Scully picked up the necklace and her body began to feel just as light as the precious item she was holding, like she was suddenly filled with helium, floating in the vast clouds of air and nothingness. 

She was reminded once again of Emily. 

Necklace in hand, Scully walked over to her mirror, ignoring the look of worn grief on her face and body, and held up the golden cross to her neck. She then began to feel even more lightheaded and fuzzy. Like she had actually sucked all of that helium into her lungs and it was flooding her brain, leading her towards inevitable unconsciousness. Taking a deep breath, she stabilized her legs and fastened the necklace in place, stroked the cross that was nuzzled between her collar bones. 

_ One step forward, _ she thought to herself.  _ One more step closer to healing. This is good.  _

But it wasn’t good, really. The last time she’d worn that necklace, she had given it to Emily. And the last time she’d picked up the piece of jewelry and held it to her body, she had gathered it from her daughter’s ashes - filled only partly in her tiny white coffin. The thought was all too much to bear as her brain replayed the stirring memories. She began to hyperventilate at the thought; the same feeling of her lungs being filled with fluid. Clawing at the necklace, she tore open flesh, blood pricking her nails, marks down her throat. Scully began sobbing and screaming, not being able to take off what she desperately needed to. It felt as though the piece of gold was trying to wrap around her neck and suffocate her. To bring her back into the darkness she despised and simultaneously craved. She couldn’t handle that small reminder of her child. Not now. Not yet. 

At the same exact time, the familiar sound of Mulder’s seven o’clock knocks suddenly sounded through the walls of Scully’s apartment, though she would never hear them - her gasps for breath the only thing she could hear. 

What happened in those following moments, Scully would never quite remember fully. It was blurry and hazy - a fog of delirium that happened in slow motion. She heard Mulder’s sudden voice in the next room, brimming with confusion and fear. She felt his warm hands against her cold skin. Felt his arms wrap around hers to try to calm her down from hysteria. Tears poured down her face and all she could see was herself drowning in water. Emily lost with her and floating away into the depths of the unknown. Melissa by her side, blood spilling from her head and mixing with the tide. She could hear Mulder yelling her name but his voice sounded miles away, though she could still feel him wrapped around her, squeezing and caressing. He was trying to soothe her. 

The next thing she registered was complete and utter blackness. Everything went still and quiet as the fuzzy feeling turned into one of melting. Her limbs went limp, body completely numb. 

She passed out in Mulder’s gentle arms, her body draped over them. Collapsing onto him nearly lifeless, they both fell to the wooden floor as the sudden weight of her dragged him down, too. 

All that was left was total blackness. 

_

  
  


Behind closed eyes, Scully was suddenly fluttering into consciousness, her senses becoming aware of her immediate surroundings. Even through sealed lids, it was unusually bright in the room and it smelled overwhelmingly of iodoform. Of disinfectant and lingering stale sweat. The blanket tucked under her arms and over her body was scratchy and familiar. She could hear the beeping of a monitor. Squeezing, pinching, pricking. Her entire body felt heavy and her brain was completely foggy. 

She knew of this all too well and knew exactly where she was instantly, though she couldn’t quite remember how she had gotten here. 

Opening her eyes just a sliver, the light was blinding, causing her body to flinch in reaction to its rays. She groaned just a little and turned her head ever so slightly. Let her pupils adjust to the fluorescent brightness. Panic almost set in again. 

And then there was a warm and familiar hand on her skin, gently touching in soothing strokes against her arm. A voice next, even more familiar. It helped calm some of her confusion - his voice always a crest of peace and tranquillity. 

“Scully? Scully, I’m here. You’re going to be okay.” 

“Mulder.” 

In a slow movement so as to not cause her head to spin, she turned her neck and opened her eyes fully to look at him. “Mulder,” she said again. 

He scooted closer to the hospital bed and swiped Scully’s cheek with his thumb, his other hand lacing with hers. Their gazes locked for what seemed like hours yet mere seconds, and he smiled across at her weak form. “How are you feeling, Scully?” 

“I - I don’t know.” Scanning his face, she tried to remember what happened but she came up incredibly empty, his eyes holding nothing but fragility and softness. 

When he didn’t utter a word, she continued, giving a quiet, “Was I given a sedative? Mulder, what happened?” Her words were forming slowly and coming out just the same. “How did I… how did I get here?” 

“You don’t remember?” The hand holding hers gripped a little tighter and Mulder swiped a wisp of hair from her brow, tucking it behind her ear. “What’s the last thing you  _ do  _ remember?” 

Scully let out a big exhale, one she didn’t know she was holding and looked at her partner with confusion. “I remember pulling out some pajamas to get dressed and … I don’t know. The rest seems very hazy,” she nearly whispered. She then sat up a little higher in bed, her head pounding, adrenaline releasing in her bloodstream as her mind tried to fight for clarity and answers. “Mulder, I need to see my chart. Now. Please.” The medication they must have given her was making her feel extremely weird, like she was in a realistic dream. But it was also helping to calm her. Trying to think of what she could have been prescribed, her mind came up empty. She needed to know what was going on. 

“Scully, it’s okay.” Mulder stood up from the bedside chair and sat on the edge of her bed, his hands now in his lap, unsure of how to proceed. “You… Scully, I went to drop off some dinner for you and I could hear you crying and practically screaming through the door of your apartment. I let myself in with my key and found you in your room…”

Sitting up a little higher and trying to piece blurry memories together, she questioned him wearily. “... And?” 

He cleared his throat and proceeded forward, reaching for Scully’s hand once more. She looked up at him as he did so, and she could read his eyes immediately; reached down through those hazel depths, and found his truth. The words that couldn’t yet leave his tongue: that she was going to get through the grief and that he was going to be there for her no matter what. Every step of the way. That Mulder wouldn’t let her wallow alone in her fears and her pain. Never again. 

“You had a panic attack and couldn’t breathe... You passed out, Scully. I panicked and drove you here,” Mulder uttered quietly, this time looking at the off-white blanket instead of her eyes, still wondering if it was the right decision to make. “I didn’t know what to do. They brought you in and you immediately woke up and started acting... frantic again. I don’t think the hospital scene was such a smart thing to have you wake up to but… They gave you a sedative. Ran some tests as a precaution.” 

Scully just looked at him. “Oh.” 

“But as I said, it is all going to be fine. I had to tell the doctor I was your husband so she’d give me all of your test results.” With that, he gave a small chuckle, the smile only upturning his lips slightly. “Everything is okay. And I’m here for you, Scully. No matter what, alright?”

She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do as pieces of that night began flaring within her brain again as the fuses connected. Holding Mulder’s hand tighter, she began to shed a few tears, not being able to stop their spill. Scully tugged at his arm and let him wrap them both around her; his smell and his familiarity an instant comfort. She wanted to let him in and for it to be easier. For him to keep telling her that everything would turn out all right.

Mulder held her close against his body and Scully felt his warmth encompass her. Felt him drawing her in as much as he could as they sat together in her hospital bed. She quietly sobbed against his chest as he rubbed her back with such empathizing care, being mindful of the iv in the back of her hand. He held her and held her until her sobs turned into quiet sniffles, and when she withdrew slightly, she looked up at him with her eyes a darkened blue. 

“Thank you, Mulder,” she barely managed to whisper. It was all she could muster. 

Lowering his lips to her forehead, Mulder leaned in closer. Scully closed her eyes and felt as his kiss spoke to her without the need for words, telling her how much she meant to him as a partner and as a best friend. They communicated so easily that way. Her heart began to pump a little faster at his intimate connection, her chest monitor alerting both of them to her rapid heartbeat. She smiled at his touch and felt as though everything he was telling her was true - the touch of his lips an anchor to the control and normalcy she needed most. His gesture was warm and loving, a meaningful reminder that she could get through anything if she’d let him in. If she’d let him be by her side through it all. 

When he pulled back, Mulder smiled at her and told her with a voice that was filled with nothing but the truth. “Always, Scully. Always.” He smiled at her again and added so very silently: “Let me be here for you, Dana.” 

Scully wiped away the remaining tears that she couldn’t believe she’d let flow so freely, and slowly reached for Mulder’s hand. “I - I know.” 

Grasping it tightly, he gave her a few moments of comforting silence to process everything. “Can I get you anything? Your chart and some ice water?” he asked. Somehow he was learning what she always needed. And a break from the heavy stuff was one of those things, too. 

“Yes. Please.” 

His thumb stroked her white knuckles, the ones beginning to pink up from the two bags of fluids being pumped languidly into her veins, and she closed her eyes at the touch. After almost five years as his partner, after five years of going through everything you could practically go through with another person, Scully swallowed some of her pride and promised herself that she’d try to let Mulder deeper into her heart if she could; to heal, to grow, to let it flourish with him there. He was her best friend and the only person in the world she could trust wholeheartedly. And he was right. She would have to try to rely on someone to help her trudge through the darkness, and she wanted that someone to be Mulder. Even if it meant she would have to put work into being truly vulnerable with him. The least she could do was try. 

“I’ll be right back,” Mulder promised her. He stood and gave her one last look, stopping in the doorway as she relaxed back in bed, her eyes swollen and body looking as exhausted as ever. 

When he came back a few minutes later with her medical chart and a big cup of water with a bendy straw, he also took out a few chocolates he had swept from the nurses’ station, and she smiled up at him brightly. The first genuine smile he’d seen on her face in weeks. 

Yes, he would always be there for her. 

She had chosen the right person to let into her heart. Even if it would take a long while for it to heal. 

_

  
  


Six months later: 

“Now tell me, Dana, how are you feeling today? Last week during our appointment, you said you were finally starting to feel like you were back on your feet again. Is that still true today?” 

Scully was sitting in her new therapist’s office, the one that she immediately booked an appointment for the day after she was discharged from the hospital. Her ER doctor had given her a prescription for a week's worth of Xanax as well as a referral to some of the best therapists in the city, and she chose the one that best seemed fit for her. 

Relaxing on the black leather couch, she nodded her head, absentmindedly playing with a tissue in her lap, and replied to Dr. Marshall.

“I do. I actually feel like things are getting easier. And I say that honestly. I know that it will still take some time … after losing Emily. After everything else that has happened… but I feel like I have changed significantly since I first started seeing you. I can think of Emily without crying now and have been able to go back to work and daily life as normal as before. Which I wouldn’t really categorize as normal but,” she laughed lightly and shrugged, still picking at her tissue. 

“That’s great. Wonderful,” Dr. Marshall replied. She scribbled something quickly in her notebook and looked back up at Scully. “And the nightmares, are they getting better?” 

“Yes. I have only had a few in the last few weeks.” 

Dr. Marshall nodded and kept up a warm and kind smile. “I’m very glad to hear that, Dana. Now, let’s talk about Mulder.” 

“Mulder?”

“I know it’s still difficult for you to let him in all the way, but he’s someone you need to lean on to heal, Dana. You can’t do everything on your own even if that’s what your mind is telling you to do. You have made such good progress so far, but it’s always a long journey to let someone in completely to your heart and mind.” 

“I know. I know that. We’ve gone through a lot together. Not just in the past six months or year. Ever since I was assigned to be his partner. There’s still so much we haven’t talked about. Things I probably  _ can’t  _ talk about just yet with him. But I’m trying.” 

Dr. Marshall jotted down a few more things and straightened her glasses on the bridge of her nose, nodding once more. “Do you feel that, by letting him in and helping you through some of your trauma, that it has brought the two of you closer?”

Scully let the corners of her lips curl up into a little grin, thinking about how close she and Mulder have gotten over the past five years - over the past half-year, too - and about how much he means to her. “Yeah,” she said, a small blush creeping up on her cheekbones, illuminating her smile. “He’s my best friend. I trust him more than anyone. He’s my - my person.” 

At the end of her session, Scully left feeling even better than she had been before. She smiled at the receptionist and took the elevator down to the parking garage. Once she was inside her car, her phone lit up with an incoming call - one from Mulder - sparking another thought that she’d been beginning to feel within her. Maybe one that had been buried deep down along with everything else, too. Something scary she couldn’t quite admit. One that she couldn’t yet tell anyone. Not even to her therapist. 

Pressing the green button she held up the phone to her ear. “Scully.” 

“Scully, it’s me.” 

  
_ Yeah,  _ she thought to herself, finishing the one she had earlier in Doctor Marshall’s office.  _ And I love him more than anyone, too. _

**Author's Note:**

> “Who are the men who would create a life whose only hope is to die?”
> 
> “I don’t know. But that you found her and you had a chance to love her... Maybe she was meant for that, too.”
> 
> “She found me.”
> 
> “So you could save her.”
> 
> She couldn’t save her, but she was on her way to saving herself. To healing. For herself and for her. For Emily.
> 
> A big thank you to Nicole, Shawna, Candice, and Jaime for the beta and overall support!


End file.
